Celebrating the Fourth of July, or Independence Day as it should be called, has always been a part of our family’s traditions. When we were kids we would usually go to one side of the family or the other for a cook-out/picnic and fireworks display after it turned dark enough. Going to Grandma’s house was always fun, she made her famous potato salad, always the same every year, and ate her’s warm. We would spread a large beach towel out on the picnic table for a table-cloth and sit around the table for a family meal. Grandma was quite the patriotic American. Old Glory would be flying, she would often be dressed in something red, white and blue. She’s the one who instilled in me the love for our Nation’s Flag.
I remember the nasty sparklers that always burned our hands or worse, our feet, yet we still wanted to have them and write our names in the dark. We had to have our “lady finger” firecrackers and smoke balls. Grandma always loved a good fountain display. Us kids always wanted the vibrant and loud. Our poor neighbors.
Over the course of my lifetime I’ve seen so many changes in the people of these great United States. Everyone likes to complain about our government, it does too little, does too much, does the wrong thing, yada yada yada. But is it really the government who is to blame? What about the people who put (and continue to put) these same types into power? The people are really the ones to bear the blame. Be the change you want to see. Make a difference.
It seems to me that people no longer understand what liberty is. What true freedom looks like. Honestly, I’m not sure I really understand as all I have ever known has been this pseudo liberty/freedom that we currently have, ever eroding. I think that living here in Alaska gives me a better idea of individual liberty and freedom, and the responsibility that comes with that. You have to make your own way, and sometimes that means paying for it yourself and doing it yourself. Not having something handed to you. We as 21st century Americans like to have things handed to us.
I would like to challenge you today. Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence? It’s about 5 pages in total, with the signatures, only 3 or so pages of actual text, shouldn’t take you too long. I’d like you to read it, together as a family would be best. But let us take a few moments to remember what this “holiday” is really about. 56 men stood up to an unfair system. They pledged all that they had, risked their lives, their families and their holdings. They weren’t perfect, none of us are. But they had a dream for better place to live, a better way to live and a better way to be governed. We have strayed a long way from those principles.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed,— That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…
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Alaska on my mind... 